Counter point
Those are valid arguments, I think. However, my main bone to pick with populations on inhospitable worlds concerns these otherwise unhabitable worlds with a massive population. These worlds should be the exception and not normal in Traveller. People tend to cluster together for social reasons, beyond simple economics (ironically even in large cities, where one of the major complaints is the sense of isolation from other people). Plus, the majority of people prefer to live in a pleasant place. If they're living in an inhospitable place, they need a pretty strong external force to leave them there."
Accepted that huge populations are strange on some inhospitalbe worlds. But consider this
1% of 1000 is 10 and of 1,000,000 is 10,000 and so on
* People who move away to get away from people. Small communities of differing beliefs (never more than, say, a million people) would certainly spring up, especially if their beliefs were philosophical/religious. However, historically such communities, if connected to the larger world, tend to have a population exodus that begins one or two generations down the road - young people no longer believe so fervently and if the world has some "A" Starport, these people are going to start to trickle, then torrent out.
* Valuable resources. This is usually mining, but could be the harvesting of plants/animals (though usually plants/animals tend to pop up in Traveller on hospitable worlds). I can imagine a large population on these worlds as a kind of "gold rush town" or "boomtown." Such populations would exist as long as whatever resources holds out. With the voracious needs of materials of the 3I, I'd imagine within a few hundred years, a lot of these mining boomtown worlds would experience lower yields, at which point, the populations would take off for greener pastures.
* Loners. Loners are, by definition, loners. You're never going to get a large population of these people on a world."
True, true but using your own arguements consider this:
Loners or a small group of loners (say 20 or less) colonize/inhabit an out of place world that is very inhospitable. Then they are discovered during a survey of which said survey finds valuable X. Corps and individuals flock to said planet to gather X which could lead to a suddenly HUGE population. Then after say 10 to 20 years, poof population drops down to say 10,000, then a few years later drops down to less than the intial loners or to zero.
Basing this on the Mountain Men and Gold Miner history of the United States.
* Stranded people. This can be an interesting one. I suspect in a lot of cases, once contact is re-established, the kids, grandkids, or great-grandkids would begin to leave the community in search of a place where life is more pleasant."
Possibly, Unless the contact is century old and (possible) culture is setup/developed into something so different that can not except any other type of livestyle. OR they have evolved into something that can only survive for short times outside of the planet's influence.
* Military Base. I can easily imagine this one. A Depot or something might be on an inhospitable world because it's strategically located or access to it is easily controlled. Simple military orders will keep the people living there. I don't think anyone would live there out of choice, however. The military population would probably be transitory. The civilians in the support sector (if any) might be longer-term, but even then in Traveller.
* Support Services. Just like the mom-and-pop gas stations in the middle of nowhere are going away today because nobody wants to work at some lonely gas station in the middle of nowhere, I think that waystations along J-1 routes between nice worlds would have severe difficulties keeping people on them. I've always imagined corporations hire people on contracts like, "Okay, we hire you and train you for your job. You agree to work 10 years on a post of our choice (this will be a lonely asteroid or hellhole world that nobody would want to be at). We ship you out there. You get paid a lot more than someone normally doing your job. At the end of your contract, we pay to ship you back home."
My main counterpoint to all of the above (hinted at in the Loner refute/points) is that there is nothing wrong with in your universe (or maybe a scenario in the OTU) if something happens to make the population dramatically drop from a million plus to less than 10,000 in say a few years time (or months). This would make for some very unusally problems/issues for surrouding governments or the Imperium it self
Pirates might move in
An economic base is lost
A trade route is lost
A mineral source is lost
A quarratine is needed/required
Louters must be stopped
Sudden shift of population to other worlds/outpost which over whelm said place
I have used the following in MTU to change a few worlds population around:
Black Death (players accidently brought a bad bug to the world that hurt only those of that world)
Gold Rush (mineral rush) in one case players started the rush and in another they brought trade goods but was too late because most of the rush was over and the price of their goods was not as high as they planned
Enlightment (they found a lost world that had just under a 1 million people. After helping them back to StarFlight, trading for them to get Jump Ship and taught them about the universe around 1/2 of the population took off and the other 1/2 stayed and dug in deeper. the staying 1/2 banded outworld travellers from landing and asked the Imperium to Red Zone them.)
Just some fun with large issues to throw at some players.
Even had a few players who wanted to create their next character from one of the above worlds so that they had a great background that they already knew
BTW thanks for the comments back. I love having discussions like this
Dave Chase
